Palm was an original pioneer and we want to keep it that way," TCL chief exec George Guo said at a small press conference at CES in Las Vegas. "We want to attract the people who have ideas on how to revive the brand in a meaningful way."

TCL added that it is committed to maintaining Palm as a US-based company and that the subsidiary would have offices in Silicon Valley, in order to take advantage of the talent and opportunities for partnership there.

The one option that sounds like it's off the table, however, is for TCL to manufacture phones that resemble the Palm devices of yore. Specifically, they almost certainly won't run webOS, Palm's latter-days operating system that was bought by LG in 2013 for use in its line of smart TVs.

Wow great article i just read--see quotes below.
It feels like the Alcatel guy is mixing up (deliberately??) brand innovation which Palm and webOS does
with advertiser attention (which is about publicity).
If he really wanted to go the innovation way, he would do what webOS did--truly bring innovation that changed the market (even though unfortunately it did not advance well enough to get enough users).

Instead it looks like he wants to make an impression on consumers with innovating by crowdsourcing. But not anything else.

But I admit it is confusing, as he is mixing the two ideas and being vague (although he clearly said "probably not webos")

I was recently quoted as saying, “I don’t give a ****” if Instagram has more users than Twitter. If you read the article you’ll note there’s a big “if” before my not giving of said ****. As quoted:

If you think about the impact Twitter has on the world versus Instagram, it’s pretty significant. It’s at least apples to oranges. Twitter is what we wanted it to be. It’s this realtime information network where everything in the world that happens on Twitter — important stuff breaks on Twitter and world leaders have conversations on Twitter. If that’s happening, I frankly don’t give a **** if Instagram has more people looking at pretty pictures.
Of course, I am trivializing what Instagram is to many people. It’s a beautifully executed app that enables the creation and enjoyment of art, as well as human connection, which is often a good thing. But my rant had very little to do with it (or with Twitter). My rant was the result of increasing frustration with the one-dimensionality that those who report on, invest in, and build consumer Internet services talk about success.

Which rectangle is bigger?
Ask any junior high student which rectangle is bigger, one that is three inches wide or one that is two-and-a-half inches wide, and they’ll tell you it’s a nonsensical question unless they have more information — specifically, the height...."

And here ...
Advertisers don’t really want your time — they want to make an impression on your mind, consciously or subconsciously (and, ultimately, your money)."

Palm was an original pioneer and we want to keep it that way," TCL chief exec George Guo said at a small press conference at CES in Las Vegas. "We want to attract the people who have ideas on how to revive the brand in a meaningful way."

TCL added that it is committed to maintaining Palm as a US-based company and that the subsidiary would have offices in Silicon Valley, in order to take advantage of the talent and opportunities for partnership there.

The one option that sounds like it's off the table, however, is for TCL to manufacture phones that resemble the Palm devices of yore. Specifically, they almost certainly won't run webOS, Palm's latter-days operating system that was bought by LG in 2013 for use in its line of smart TVs.

"We are open to all ideas, but probably not webOS," Guo said.

Although honestly, a big webOS revival after all these years would probably not have been a good business move anyway. It would take so much more than, say, Mochi on a new Palm phone to get everybody streaming back, especially at a time when developers for the most part (homebrewers being the exception) are either winding down, or have already wound down their webOS development.
That being said, does that exclude LuneOS as well? I wonder what the possibilities of, say, hiring the webOS ports team, throwing in some resources and extra personnel would be. Anyways, its great to see that as one door closes with HP webOS officially losing support in about a week, another door opens.

Well, had time now to read the "offlines", and personally I stand by my idea.
Palm had a concept that was a mix of 2 things.. the os, and the hw design. Right now every single phone made around the globe is practically the same rectangular brick.... and the "flaming" is usually about who invented rounded corners first ( lol... ).

So the question is : do you feel the Pre form factor is still something attractive, practical and unique ?
I Think it fills all those 3 points, and would be disliked only by who is fixated on 3mm thickness (btw, I doubt you can bend a pre while closed).

They bought the brand, thus they bought the designs of the pre / veer lines. The best way to stand out and differentiate is to use them and have something elegant, distinctive, ergonomic... and different from the mass.

This is , imho, half of the equation. The other half would be luneOS, or the classic webos not owned by lg but still by hp, or the new version owned by lg. One involves giving active support to finish it, other two involve investing money... in any case the only way it would work is by imitating BB10 as in adding support for at least amazon apps.

Well, had time now to read the "offlines", and personally I stand by my idea.
Palm had a concept that was a mix of 2 things.. the os, and the hw design. Right now every single phone made around the globe is practically the same rectangular brick.... and the "flaming" is usually about who invented rounded corners first ( lol... ).

So the question is : do you feel the Pre form factor is still something attractive, practical and unique ?
I Think it fills all those 3 points, and would be disliked only by who is fixated on 3mm thickness (btw, I doubt you can bend a pre while closed).

They bought the brand, thus they bought the designs of the pre / veer lines. The best way to stand out and differentiate is to use them and have something elegant, distinctive, ergonomic... and different from the mass.

This is , imho, half of the equation. The other half would be luneOS, or the classic webos not owned by lg but still by hp, or the new version owned by lg. One involves giving active support to finish it, other two involve investing money... in any case the only way it would work is by imitating BB10 as in adding support for at least amazon apps.

Well if they asked me as a fan for my input, I would say make a pre3 clone, I mean really everything including the touchstone and the mirror (why waste that space on the back) and maybe a little wider so a virtual keyboard would fit better. Put luneOS on it, LG busy making android phones

And a slab phone iphone 6 size.

Seems like they depending on us to be their first customers, and we not gonna buy if it's just an android phone with a palm logo on it. What about carriers tho? Are they gonna be able to convince them to carry anything with the name palm on it /can't succeed with just unlocked phones I don't think.

Hello Everyone,
Let's not get ahead of ourselves here with this news...if memory serves me right, Qualcomm bought the remaining Palm patents from HP last year. So, as far as that goes, I don't think that TCL would be able to create a webOS based phone without the cooperation of both LG and Qualcomm. Now LuneOS is a different story since it is open source. HP sheds some of Palm&#39;s last remnants with patent sale to Qualcomm | The Verge

Well, had time now to read the "offlines", and personally I stand by my idea.
Palm had a concept that was a mix of 2 things.. the os, and the hw design. Right now every single phone made around the globe is practically the same rectangular brick.... and the "flaming" is usually about who invented rounded corners first ( lol... ).

So the question is : do you feel the Pre form factor is still something attractive, practical and unique ?
I Think it fills all those 3 points, and would be disliked only by who is fixated on 3mm thickness (btw, I doubt you can bend a pre while closed).

They bought the brand, thus they bought the designs of the pre / veer lines. The best way to stand out and differentiate is to use them and have something elegant, distinctive, ergonomic... and different from the mass.

This is , imho, half of the equation. The other half would be luneOS, or the classic webos not owned by lg but still by hp, or the new version owned by lg. One involves giving active support to finish it, other two involve investing money... in any case the only way it would work is by imitating BB10 as in adding support for at least amazon apps.

I really doubt they bought anything besides the brand name (Trademark, domain name and twitter account), so i wouldn't think they have any exclusive right to a portrait slider layout with a gesture area and notification LED below the screen. Because trademarks "expire" for lack of enforcement. And if Qualcomm bought all Palm patents in bulk, they are the ones who more likely own design patent(s) if such exists.

I moved to Androidland back in 2012 and you know what, it's been fine. I still lament webOS and all the could've-beens but at this point, I'm fine with an Android device that looked and navigated like webOS. That means the launcher would permanently display cards, and card swiping motion can be done like in Touchpad. And we saw in some Gnex webOS prototypes, there could be a permanent webOS like nav bar at the bottom of the screen for our gestures (heck, Android already has virtual buttons in the nav bar anyway. The recent apps icon on Android can be replaced with webOS gestures in the nav bar. Really, at this point, what is it about webOS that we need to hold onto so dearly besides the UI and navigation? (well, maybe not to freeze the apps so switching apps would be instant). It's really the motion of switching back and forth between the apps that I miss about webOS the most but I don't think you need webOS to achieve it.

I moved to Androidland back in 2012 and you know what, it's been fine. I still lament webOS and all the could've-beens but at this point, I'm fine with an Android device that looked and navigated like webOS. That means the launcher would permanently display cards, and card swiping motion can be done like in Touchpad. And we saw in some Gnex webOS prototypes, there could be a permanent webOS like nav bar at the bottom of the screen for our gestures (heck, Android already has virtual buttons in the nav bar anyway. The recent apps icon on Android can be replaced with webOS gestures in the nav bar. Really, at this point, what is it about webOS that we need to hold onto so dearly besides the UI and navigation? (well, maybe not to freeze the apps so switching apps would be instant). It's really the motion of switching back and forth between the apps that I miss about webOS the most but I don't think you need webOS to achieve it.

Yes you said it, the UI, gesture area, oh and UH, KEYBOARD. You may not NEED webOS to achieve it, but has anyone made launcher that's more than a superficial attempt? No.

Yeah, please. Someone make android behave the way webOS does. But make it a portrait slider so I can go back to typing without making so many corrections because virtual keyboards SUCK.

Hello Everyone,
Let's not get ahead of ourselves here with this news...if memory serves me right, Qualcomm bought the remaining Palm patents from HP last year. So, as far as that goes, I don't think that TCL would be able to create a webOS based phone without the cooperation of both LG and Qualcomm. Now LuneOS is a different story since it is open source. HP sheds some of Palm's last remnants with patent sale to Qualcomm | The Verge

Well when the Alcatel guy says he probably won't use webOS, does he include openWebOS as well (i.e. LuneOS)
in that comment?
Someone text Derek or whoever is there at CES so we can get a clarification.

Regarding android, I spent yesterday flashing android 4.4 so I could see if the new microsoft office preview would install. I was running thru the system app permissions when i noticed the live wallpapers had access to all the personal details--calls, messages, device ID etc. Wallpapers! The OS is infested with spyware that is masked superficially by a pretty cover.
At least I was able to sidestep the google and amazon app stores as XDA had the few apps I needed.

(fyi the microsoft 365 preview for android tablets did not install as it told me I did not have the right processor although i read somewhere all you need is ARM so if anyone else gets this working, let me know).

This is close enough to a webOS vs everything else thread that this shouldn't be too out of place. I want webOS! I gave Android a shot for 8 or 9 months, but just didn't like it enough to stay with it. What drove me to drop it was ICS not retaining the default app for sms after I changed it. I'm glad I did, because google has made the UI worse with every new release. Same thing with Apple. I finally bought an iphone, and then they ruined the UI with iOS 7. The new features weren't enough to put up with the new UI. Now I only use it on WiFi to keep my work calendar and email accessible. And I just didn't love either one like I do webOS. I'd rather put up with a few limitations and love the rest of the experience, than to dislike the experience to gain all the apps and better browser, the latter of which can be addressed in a new release of webOS.

Make a Palm Pre 4 (Small, Medium, and Large), Small the size of the Veer, the Medium the size of the Pre2, and the Large the size of the Pre3.

Make it a slider, give it a fork of webOS that can run Android Apps (not froze) in cards, have ability to create Java Script apps (Mojo/Enyo) local, use QUALCOMM Chipsets, make it dual SIM (CDMA/World Phone), allow removable batteries, Nice gesture area, killer speakers (stereo), Great Display...

I have looked at Android (Samsung/LG/HTC/Google), BlackBerry, Apple, they all are still stuck in 2000...

My Pre2 can sync with my Touchpad, I can make calls, share SMS (texts), calendars, so much more... Apple tried with iOS 8 and OS X they still do not work together like webOS designed... Still can not charge a Apple device without plugging in some connector so 1990... Inductive charging is so cool.... Still only a handful of devices can do this...

I am still stuck using my Palm PrePlus with webOS 2.2.4 because nothing moves me like the hardware and software integration...

FYI someone said webOS 2.2.5 that did exist with the HP Pre3, just it was never released to the public like webOS 3.0.6 I have seen on the Touchpad Go... Yep the webOS 2.2.5 posted below looks like the one I know...

I am on the side of they are just buying a recognizable name. I am vested in another platform right now and the only thing that will bring me back is WebOS, Open WebOS or maybe PalmOS. A android device with a palm name will only keep me with my current platform